Hollowed out of thinkers, Sussan Ley's party dreams of nothing other than opposition
Menzies led the Liberals to power for the first time in 1949 with an anti-socialist platform that attacked the Curtin Labor government's bank nationalisation plans. Now, 75 years on, the party's policy brain appears to have atrophied sometime between the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
When Labor introduced legislation to bring its 'Future Made in Australia' industrial policy to fruition in April 2024, Ley referred to the government as 'radical' while Taylor dismissed the policy as a slush fund for the PM to 'pick winners'.
But industrial policy is one area where government intervention makes sense. Australia sits below Botswana at 105 out of 133 on the Economic Complexity Index, reflecting overreliance on commodities and underinvestment in innovation and manufacturing compared to other advanced economies. A policy to build sovereign manufacturing capacity and high‑skill jobs in strategically important sectors reflects a 21st-century economic consensus that markets are a means to a societal goal, not an end in themselves.
Socialist smears may resonate with rusted-on conservatives, but risk alienating voters the party desperately needs. A 2024 YouGov poll found 53 per cent of Australians aged 18-24 favour a more socialist direction, compared to 22 per cent preferring more capitalism.
According to a June Redbridge Group poll, voters aged 65+ were the only cohort in which the Coalition won more votes than Labor at the May election. A paltry 19 per cent of 18-34 year-olds voted Coalition, less than half of those who voted for Labor – a result dubbed a 'youthquake' by Redbridge director and former Liberal Party official Tony Barry.
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Where to now for a party that defines itself in opposition to a Labor Party that's colonised the political centre? How does the party of 'lower taxes' resonate in a social democracy where overall taxation is already well below the OECD average?
Unfortunately for Ley, she has inherited a party lacking the policy hardheads to write the necessary software update. In the wake of the election result, Institute of Public Affairs Senior Fellow John Roskam bemoaned the loss of the 'serious thinkers' at the heart of the party in the 1970s and 1980s. Roskam says the party is verging on 'anti-intellectual' and is lacking the personnel to think critically about how Liberal principles can be adapted to 21st-century realities.
Meanwhile, the pews of a once broad church have been gradually purged of moderates since Ian McPhee lost preselection for opposing John Howard's hard-line rhetoric on Asian immigration in the late 1980s. Others followed, among them Julia Banks, John Hewson, Fred Chaney, and former PMs Fraser and Turnbull.
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What remains is a party with an uninspiring message about small government that airbrushes over Menzies' nation‑building legacy of universities, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and delivering the publicly funded Snowy Mountains Scheme – the largest engineering project in our nation's history.
Ley deserves some patience as she tries to rehabilitate the Liberals. She's saying all the right things about 'listening' and addressing issues that concern young people, but uncertain times call for a leader, not populist vessel.
We must judge her on whether she can reignite a contest of ideas anchored in sound values and serious policy work. The outcome from her working group on energy and emissions reduction will be a test she cannot afford to fail.
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